Congrats to Billy Reid! The industry veteran, whose story of triumph, retreat, and comeback is one for the fashion books, has been awarded the CFDA Fashion Fund Prize. He'll receive $300,000 to put towards the growth of his already-impressive business, which includes menswear, womenswear, collaborations with K-Swiss and Levi's, as well as several retail boutiques.
Runners up Prabal Gurung and Eddie Borgo received $100,000 each. The prizes were upped significantly this year--by $100,000 for the winner, $50,000 for the runners-up. All three designers also received a Rachel Feinstein-designed trophy.
This year, the Fashion Fund's partner was J.Crew, with additional support from American Express, Appleman Foundation, Barneys New York, Coach, Juicy Couture, Liz Claiborne Inc., Lord & Taylor, L’Oréal Paris, Nordstrom, Theory, and Vogue.
A gaggle of stars, from Carrie Mulligan to Leighton Meester, were in attendance. We'll post our picks for best dressed tomorrow morning. Another congrats to Billy, Eddie, and Prabal!

Congrats to Billy Reid! The industry veteran, whose story of triumph, retreat, and comeback is one for the fashion books, has been awarded the CFDA Fashion Fund Prize. He'll receive $300,000 to put towards the growth of his already-impressive business, which includes menswear, womenswear, collaborations with K-Swiss and Levi's, as well as several retail boutiques.

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When designers are selected as finalists for the CFDA/Vogue Fashion Fund, they compete in a set of challenges to win the grand prize--$300K and mentorship for the year--which this year went to Billy Reid. One of these challenges was presented by Ann Taylor. The 10 finalists--Joseph Altuzarra, Billy Reid, Christian Cota, Eddie Borgo, Gregory Parkinson, Oliver Helden and Paul Marlow of Loden Dager, Moss Lipow, Pamela Love, Prabal Gurung and Robert Geller--were each given a box of images from Ann Taylor campaigns from the '50s, when the brand launched, through to today, and asked to create a look that would "rejuvenate, redefine and modernize the concept of wear-to-work dressing and set the next major career style trend."
The results? Pretty amazing. Last night, to celebrate the opening of their new concept store on 5th Ave. and 21st St., Ann Taylor revealed all the challenge looks. Winner Billy Reid created a look that paired high-waisted houndstooth-print pants with suspenders and a magic trench coat--the lining comes out and turns into a bubble hemmed shift dress. Pamela Love created a leather bag with a horn handle and a matching necklace and cuff. The color combination of Loden Dager's aqua blazer and blush pants was spot on. You can check out the looks modeled by the incomparable Karlie Kloss below.

Last night everyone who is anyone in fashion--from Anna Wintour to Steven Kolb to Mickey Drexler to models and designers galore--packed the J.Crew Men's shop on Fifth Ave. to celebrate CFDA winner Billy Reid and runners up Prabal Gurung and Eddie Borgo, all of whom designed capsule collections for the mass retailer. The party theme reflected Reid's southern heritage--"Sweet Home Alabama" played over the chatter, biscuits and fried chicken were passed around, and spiked sweet tea was served in mason jars.
Even though it's been months since Reid won the prestigious fashion award back in November, the humble designer still has trouble believing it happened.
"Everyday it’s totally surreal," he told us.

When Ann Taylor unveiled its collection designed by last year's CFDA Fashion Fund nominees, we oohed and awed. And pouted. Because despite the fact that we would have bought the entire capsule--and we mean that--it was not produced.
Today, we received good news that the samples--created by Joseph Altuzarra, Prabal Gurung, Billy Reid, and Loden Dager, to name a few--are now up for auction on eBay, with 100% of the proceeds benefiting the CFDA. Unfortunately, unless you're a size zero--and a Karlie Kloss zero at that--the only options are to bid on jewelry and accessories by Eddie Borgo and Pamela Love. Oh, and Robert Geller's outfit, which is a much more reasonable size 4.
While we admit that those are pretty good options, we still wish Ann Taylor would have produced a proper collection with these guys. Mostly because I want the Loden Dager outfit real bad.

Ten American designers just got a lot happier. The CFDA and Vogue announced their ten finalists for the seventh annual CFDA/Vogue Fashion Fund initiative, and we're pretty pleased with the results (as we're sure they are as well). Though the process is far from being over--the winner and two runners-up will be announced on November 15--having the list in our hands is enough to make us sit on the edge of our seats. The finalists are as follows: